Candidate Ads Hit The Air

Two candidates for the U.S. Senate hit the radio waves this week in the struggle for the Republican nomination.

U.S. Rep. Linda Smith unveiled a 60-second commercial Monday in which she discusses her work on a successful 1993 initiative campaign that limited state spending.

“Even if I haven’t met you personally yet, you know me from the things we’ve done together,” she says in the commercial, designed to improve her name identification among voters.

The Smith campaign is spending $10,000 this week for ads on radio stations around the state, Smith said at a news conference in Spokane, one of four cities in her plane trip around the state.

Former King County Prosecutor Chris Bayley, her main GOP rival for the nomination, will begin a series of radio commercials this week, a campaign spokesman said. He will be unveiling those ads at stops in Spokane and the Tri-Cities today.

Bayley’s commercials will oppose the removal of dams on the Columbia River system to help the dwindling salmon runs. Campaign spokesman Brett Bader said those ads, costing about $30,000 over the next two weeks, will be concentrated in Eastern Washington.

Advertising on radio or television is unusual this early in a campaign. Candidates don’t formally file for office until the last week of July, and the primary isn’t until Sept. 15.

“We’re starting radio earlier because it’s a different kind of campaign,” Smith said. She expects to use a different ad with a different issue each week.

Bader said it’s difficult to get voters’ attention this early in the campaign with an ad designed to raise the candidate’s name identification.

“Nobody’s listening, nobody cares,” he said. By concentrating on a contentious issue like dam removal, Bayley hopes to get voters’ attention.

Incumbent Sen. Patty Murray, who has no announced opponent for the Democratic primary, isn’t spending any money on commercials right now, a campaign spokesman said.